Claim: Principal Jody McLoud of Roane County High School in Kingston, Tennessee, delivered a controversial speech before a school football game.

Status: True.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2000]Principal McLoud's speech was also read into the Congressional Record on 20 September 2000 by Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee.

McLoud took this to mean that the US was failing.

But you see I take this as the constitution working. If I was one of the non-religious people in the stands, why should I be forced to listen to a religious speech?

Besides the whole speech that the principal gave is very slanted.

sexual perversion and call it an alternate lifestylesexual promiscuity by dispensing condoms and calling it safe sex.killing an unborn baby as a viable means of birth control.involve students in activities to religiously worship and praise the goddess, mother earthdepict people with strong, traditional, Christian convictions as simple minded and ignorant

Very loaded words for someone that “do not need to add an intentional transgression”

I have worked with gays and lesbians. Most, I agree, had a choice in their “lifestyle”.Live as a gay or lesbian, or don’t have sex for the rest of their lives. I have also met and worked with girls who were so… degraded by the ‘guys’ in their lives that they “switched”.

I have to say that you are not going to stop kids from having sex once they try it. Dispensing condoms is a cheap way to slow down and somewhat deal with the un-wed mothers and the financial problems the states have with supporting them. Condoms will stop the ‘oops’ and if we make sure the kids have all the condoms they might use then we might have fewer 'welfare' families.

I absolutely despise this, “killing an unborn baby as a viable means of birth control.”But until the people that want to stop it line up to support the child or we plant birth control in the BOYS and girls, it is not going to stop. It was illegal before Roe vs. Wade and it still happened.

“involve students in activities to religiously worship and praise the goddess, mother earth”I had to laugh at this one. Any teacher that tried this would be brought up on charges just like a teacher trying to hold a prayer in class. Ain’t going to happen.

“depict people with strong, traditional, Christian convictions as simple minded and ignorant”I know my sister is religious. From the email it seems that my brother is too, at least somewhat. I am more like my Dad. I believe but I am not sure how to explain it. It does not match the Methodist theology I grew up with. It is not the 'Christian' teachings I got baptized under. So far I have found no one else that believes MY way. Most of the “ignorant, simple minded, people with strong, traditional, Christian convictions” that I have met try to force their version of beliefs on me.

No I do not believe that the Bible is the “word of God”. There are too many inconsistencies and contradictions. Yes, I believe that the bible is a ‘good’ book. It has many ways of getting a population to live together in harmony and treating each other well. But so do the Torah and the Koran.

In the end, all of the principal’s speech was about choice. Choice of lifestyle, choice to have sex (protection or not), and Choice of religion (or none, which is still a choice).

As for the "one nation, under GOD." statement at the end, that was not in the founding fathers documents.It was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 at the height of anti-Communist fervor.It was an attempt to link patriotism with religious piety. "In God we trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956.